Fundora bruises Thurman en route to sixth round stoppage

LAS VEGAS – In his third defense of the WBC super welterweight championship, Sebastian Fundora had felt a little jittery ahead of his bout against Keith Thurman at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

“I was a little nervous today. Because Thurman is such a big name.”

It took just a few rounds for him to remove those jitters as Fundora beat up Thurman to cause a cut below the right eye, and then proceeded to throw a series of punches to force referee Thomas Taylor to stop the bout at the 1:17 mark of the sixth round. Fundora hands Thurman his first stoppage loss of his career.

“We’ve been working very hard for this fight,” Fundora said. “That’s why I had to train so hard to prove to the world that I’m the best at 154.”

Fundora used the jab early in this fight to build a lead as he threw an average of 44 jabs for the first three rounds. Thurman couldn’t manage to throw 20 punches in the first couple of rounds and was not able to land more than one jab in a round according to CompuBox statistics.

Even though Thurman was cut and bruised up, he didn’t think that the fight should be stopped when it was.

“The fight was getting really good,” Thurman said after the fight. “The fans were loving the action and the referee stopped the fight too early.”